Monday, December 7, 2009

handmade holidays - progress update

dinosaurs

i've completed 1 gift so far and have several in the works. sage's wooden toys are finished, finally! i purchased them from an etsy shop called clickity clack. they have great wooden unfinished toys made from pine. there are some pros and cons in working with pine but for the price, you can't beat it. since we don't have the proper tools to cut out the toys, this is the next best thing (although i've put greg on notice that this may be in our futures because woodburning and painting them was a blast!). they smell really nice and they were very inexpensive (generally about 75 cents to 1.50 per toy). the downside is that the grain of the pine wood made it a bit difficult to burn. perhaps drawing the design on with a permanent marker would have been better but i really like the wood burned look.

the trees i made 2 sided so they could use them in more ways as well as on the seasonal nature table...spring and summer...the bush i tried to make as a blueberry but it looks a little hoakie to me. i was going to make the round tree an apple tree but after the blueberry turned out so crappy, i decided not to.

a mixture of spring, fall and winter

fall and some boulders...the boulders i suppose were supposed to be trees/bushes too but i liked nina's idea to make them as rocks instead.

the backside of the same...

wintertime! (these are my favorites along with the autumn tree from above)

autumn

the steps to completing these were to sand the edges down (my older daughter and a friend of hers helped with this step), sketch the images with a pencil, burn them in, water color them, rub a beeswax polish on them (made by melting 3 parts of beeswax and adding 2 parts of almond kernel oil and mixing) then buff with a soft flannel cloth. i'm pleased with the results!

dragon mama and daddy

the castle

the royal family plus the flower fairy for jaden, i still need to make some wings for her

we've also been making lots of beautiful beeswax star ornaments. i may try making some pine needle ornaments, perhaps in the shape of stars instead of hearts depending on how much time i have once i've completed the rest of the kids' presents.so, in progress or ready to make are:

~a knight costume set for sage: sword (found a year ago at a thrift shop, needs the point sanded down), a shield (if greg is able to make one), a tunic (in progress, making with wool felt), a hood (thanks to tabitha for the pattern) and a matching velvet cape (bought a bit of fabric that will match the tunic).

~a doctor's kit for jaden. now that i've decided to make one, i need to get to work designing it. i haven't given it much thought.

~a shirt and skirt for my step-daughter. she is into skulls and i found some great halloween fabric on clearance. i'm waiting for the shirt pattern to arrive but i think the skirt i will wing, just using a rectangle of fabric.

that just leaves caleb, adelena and ridge. i have no idea what i'm going to get or make them...hand making things for kids that age can be difficult. adelena will be the easiest as she likes a lot of stuff that i make. i have a few ideas up my sleeve that i need to think about more.

Those beeswax stars are beautiful. Must make some. I love that castle too, what a fun idea. I haven't ever seen one like that before. I can imagine all the imaginary play that will go on with that. My boys quite like to be knights as well and last year for solstice I knit some chainmail for my youngest. Fun to have time for handmade isn't it.

2012 book reading list

books i hope to read this year (posted here so i don't lose the list):

seer of sevenwaters by juliet marillier

the art of non-conformity by chris guillebeau

in the night garden by catherynne m valente

widdershins by charles de lint

stardust by neil gaiman

"This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof." -Neil Gaiman